


Episode IX: Hope Triumphs

by typewriter_in_galaxy



Series: The Wives of Star Wars [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Episode IX was supposed to be about Leia Organa, F/F, Genderbender Kylo Ren, In Memory of Carrie Fisher, Post-TLJ, The Author Rejects The Rise Of Skywalker, she is Breha Organa-Solo, the HEA we deserve
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-02
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:42:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23970253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/typewriter_in_galaxy/pseuds/typewriter_in_galaxy
Summary: Hope is a light brighter than the deepest darkness─but only we can keep it lit.-Breha Organa, queen of Alderaanin which women win the star war.
Relationships: Leia Organa & Rey & Han Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Rey/Kylo Ren
Series: The Wives of Star Wars [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1728136
Comments: 12
Kudos: 12





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this is a universe for the best wives who now own my heart.

Less than one hundred souls are currently dwelling in the forgotten rebel base, but the noise they make could rival that of the engines powering the entire First Order fleet, or so it seems to those who didn’t have the luxury of sleeping through the _Falcon_ ’s journey through hyperspace. Throngs of Resistance members, long used to shedding off each battle’s imprints with a nap until the next mission, are prowling restlessly through frosted corridors. Half of them are questioning Poe Dameron, their demands for a plan undeterred by his bloodshot glare, and the freshly-anointed leader feels a pang of sympathy for Holdo, just as Chewie growls loud enough to silence them. Out of respect for the pilot that led them to safety, they follow a rejuvenated Rose Tico on a hunt for salvageable equipment.

The face and heart of the Resistance, Leia Organa herself, lingers in the periphery of the chaos. Her moment of respite, of being a person instead of an ideal, is something she would like to savor. There is so much Leia wants; to comm Luke and vent, to lean her head on Han’s chest, to hold Breha’s sleeping form close. Funny how time and loss colored those moments warmly, scarce though they were. Perhaps the cold of Hoth urges her to wrap those memories around her as a blanket, or the vague familiarity of the place melts her heart, for she thinks not of Luke and Han and even Breha abandoning her, but only of her wish to be surrounded by her loves.

But if destiny or the will of the Force exists, it is a cruel thing; she has no comfort, only a holo of her daughter ─ except it’s not her baby girl either, it’s the new Supreme Leader, doubtlessly boasting about the First Order’s victory to the galaxy. Leia heaves a sigh and presses the button, half-heartedly donning the mantle of the General on. However, the mother in her leaps just as the blue glow spills in the tiny room; all other sides of her couldn't stand a chance. She tunes out the words, the statements that a politician would comb through, and recognizes not the ruthless Kylo Ren, the puppet of her child’s abuser, not even the tormented teen she sent off, but the scolded child she could never resist embracing, the one who dried angry tears against her gown with such fatigue rolling off her in the Force that Leia couldn’t even complain.

Breha still puts in effort, Leia will grant her as much. She clings to the façade Snoke dressed her in with the desperation of a man who’d otherwise fall into a cliff. Her face would betray nothing if it wasn’t for the occasional muscle twitching in her cheek and her eye. Yet her eyes are devoid of their fire, no pride holds her chin high and no satisfaction lifts, even infinitesimally, the corners of her lips. Leia knows a dejected woman when she sees one; she has faced her in the mirror more times than anyone knows.

Her eyes are still focused on where Breha stands long after the holo ends, her thoughts chasing each other not unlike a swarm of X-Wings and TIE’s. She is snapped out of her reverie sooner than she’d like, though the intrusion is not unwelcome. Chewie stomps in and collapses on the seat next to her. With sympathy for their losses already exchanged in stolen moments, they prefer to leave the silence unfilled, until she hands him the holo. Chewie watches it somberly as Leia wonders why Kylo’s victory would feel so hollow.

She can count on Chewie to point her towards the right direction; Chewie growls out his concern about Rey, having caught a glimpse of her holding the broken lightsaber halves with a desolate expression. “So you and Rey joined our fight a bit late. I understand she paid Kylo a visit?” Despite the graveness of the circumstance, her eyebrow is raised in a manner befitting the leisurely conversations she’d have over cups of caf with a friend like Amilyn.

Chewie recounts the fight between Rey and Luke, how he dropped her off in an escape pod for the Supremacy to pick up and how she sent out a message from an escape ship, presumably Snoke’s, so he would pick her up. Shyriiwook is not the most flowery of languages, but through his words, Leia clearly sees Rey’s anger at the thought of Luke striking Breha, her hope that she could return with her to the Resistance.

It could be the mind of a romantic and a mother that’s coming to that conclusion, she’s aware, but Leia sees both Rey’s and Breha’s state in a different light. She’s overcome by an urge to hold the girl that came from nowhere, comfort her and share the pain of having your love slip through your fingers, prey to the dark side. It dawns on Leia then, that Breha’s dejection is probably of a similar cause; even lightyears apart, they’re mirroring each other. An ember of hope starts to glow in her heart, slowly yet surely.

A handful of days pass. The Resistance heroes curse the cold and the new Supreme Leader, while biting their tongues to keep from blaming each other. Leia tries to placate them and look for solutions. They’re hiding not in the base she and Han had first kissed in, but a nearby storage space, in which she’d placed the first meager supplies the Resistance had gleaned right after its birth. She’d left uniforms, weaponry and even portions there, as a tribute less flashy than New Republic’s celebrations, to wish for the past not repeating itself. In a way, she was right; the present is much worse.

They discuss evacuating to Takodana or Akiva, with the _Falcon_ transporting all of Hoth’s equipment in several hyperspace runs; Chewie is vehemently opposed, so he and Rey have the first fight of their brief acquaintance, which lasts no more than an afternoon and is solved with Rey moving in the Falcon once again. They hammer out a plan of infiltrating the First Order by starting a stormtrooper rebellion; Rose watches Finn offer himself up, proud of the hero he has become. However, all they end up doing is send another distress signal and argue about not setting any plans in motions.

The General discreetly keeps an eye out for the almost-Jedi, although she can’t tell if it’s her nature, old desert habits or any lingering thoughts about Kylo, as she calls her now, that make her distant. She offers her thoughts when summoned to discussions about the Resistance’s future, but otherwise she keeps to herself, fixing the Falcon’s infinite malfunctions and studying the old Jedi texts. Leia doubts the latter; the few times she steps on the Falcon, to check on Chewie and look for traces of Han, she finds her curled up in a nook, staring at nothing. Is she reminiscing the lost opportunity, to be taught by Luke? It seems unlikely that she should be missing Jakku.

Leia soon has her own theory about her situation ─and her daughter’s─ but she dares not kindle her hopes too much; that is, until that night. The base is quiet and still, all its residents banishing their worries with sleep, except for the Force users, who are lying awake and counting their breaths. Something blooms then; the Force wraps gently around Rey until she’s no longer alone. Breha’s Force signature pulses alongside hers, both of them less tumultuous simply through interacting. It lasts a few moments, not severed by either of them, but fading unwillingly.

There are tears in Leia’s eyes, sliding freely down her weathered cheeks and watering her stiff collar. This is the closest she’s been to her daughter in years. On the bridge of _Raddus_ , she’d felt her hesitation to kill her, interpreted it as a flicker of light still living within that dark shell Snoke kept her in. On this night though, there is no shell, no disguise; only Breha, her stubborn need and malnourished hope, shot through with the same longing that Rey aches with but denies. 

The hours of the night pass strenuously, like a stalagmite thawing. Dawn finds Leia standing with enough determination to start a war on her own, or more likely, to end it ─except that her thoughts are focused not on the galaxy’s peace, but her daughter’s. She reaches out with the Force. Lightyears away, Breha Organa-Solo starts up.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Breha's point of view is the most intense one i've ever written. i'm posting more of our wives because i have no self-control🙃

It should have been a stressful few days for the new Supreme Leader. There are speeches to be given, a new capital ship to be appointed, scheming generals to keep in line, heaps and heaps of orders to approve of and decision to make. Yet nothing inside Breha stirs; she sleepwalks her way into the Finalizer, addresses the First Order’s subjects with none of the passion Hux would have expressed, and is in no mood to even choke the annoying ginger, even though it’s just a matter of time until he comes for the throne.

For the life of her, she can’t remember why anyone would want it. It leaves her with a stiff back, a sore butt and a hollow heart. The poor chair is not responsible for the latter, probably, but she holds it accountable for the muscles she pulls while training and for the heaviness of her limbs when she finally lies down. Despite herself, she reminisces the Force Bond when Rey regarded her heatedly for the first time, if only for a moment. She tries to convince herself that the memories only resurface because she’s fresh out of the shower, but before she can finish her thought, Rey appears across her.

The Force might have a peculiar sense of humor, to connect them in their most vulnerable moments, but Breha is grateful for its current mercy; Rey is engrossed in her task, unaware of her presence. Her fingers are working deftly, in a motion not unlike braiding someone’s hair, though it’s just cables and circulations she’s fixing. Breha traces the flow of hair on her nape, the straining muscles of her arm, the calluses of her fingers —with her eyes, since Rey made it clear that her hand is not welcome— and dreams of a life where she could admire all the time, not only in stolen moments, a life where she is accepted and loved.

Rey’s stance abruptly stiffens. Her head turns just a fragment away as her fingers tangle in the circuits, their coordination suddenly flawed. She’s dead set on ignoring her; the realization stings in a way she hasn’t felt ever since she last expected to be noticed and cared for. Breha wishes for rage to blind her, to mute those childish notions, but the longer she stares at Rey’s back, the more subdued she gets. She wonders if her pride would let her beg; the vision of Rey, bright as a sun, beloved as the galaxy’s Empress, with Kylo Ren as her faithful knight, would be worth her humiliation, just as it was worth murder. However, Rey has long given her answer to such a plea, by severing their precious Bond on Crait.

One hazel eye glares at her. Apparently Rey wanted accusations to respond to; the yearning stare throws her off. Breha would smirk if all of her didn’t feel so heavy. _You want me swathed in black, a nightmare with no beating heart to pierce through. You despise my tears, for they remind you of our loneliness, how we shared it. How you welcomed the monster. I’m not making it easy for you. But you like a challenge, don’t you? My scavenger, my sun. You can do anything you want; hating me will soon be as familiar as the feel of your lightsaber._

Her words are not voiced, but perhaps they course through the Bond, drifting across the shores of Rey’s mind. Her delicate features are pulled in a scowl when she faces her, pointing the broken lightsaber hilt at Breha’s chest. A tangle of emotions simmers within Rey, but she only projects anger. “You broke it,” she bites out, speaking of the saber, Luke’s legend, her belief of a family returning, the family she hoped of finding.

Breha’s only response is lowering on her knees. She aligns her heart with Rey’s fragment and looks up at the girl who blazed into her life. “You can still use it. Broken as it is, it will cut deeper.” _You have the strength to rebuild worlds, the will to burn stars. You’ll stand against me once you do, and it will kill me, more than knowing I can never hurt you does. Spare me with your light. End me now._

Rey’s lips part, the hand aiming the saber quivers. A galaxy blooms and dies in their locked eyes a moment before the Bond ends. Its warmth lingers; Breha lets it anchor her in the sea of her sorrow, and falls asleep to the faraway hum of Rey’s Force signature.

The next morning finds her unwilling to even get dressed, much less feign interest at leading the First Order. She does all of this, of course, receiving Generals on the Finalizer’s hastily assembled throne room. Hux steps in after an Imperial in desperate need of retirement, and Breha can at least amuse herself with the ginger’s snide expression and thinly-veiled plans of assassination.

In the middle of a sentence about the Resistance, one she should be paying attention to, the world stills. Breha is embraced by her mother’s light, so bright and warm she could cry. She’s suddenly small again, curled up after a nightmare, until her mom envelops her with her arms and her Force, banishing the voice of her tormentor, putting her fears to sleep. The monster preying on her thoughts is gone; having the void left by it in her mind filled with light is the greatest of comforts.

This time though, Leia lets her dark hold her daughter too; her anger at Snoke, Luke and even herself for taking her daughter away, her desire to fight anyone threatening her precious child, her sadness and frustration at the Force, for never letting her family have peace. All of this washes through Breha and has her running to the viewport behind her, combing through the stars with blurry eyes. On one of those faraway lights stands her mother, calling her home, and her soul is all but jumping out of her skin to meet her.

Leia’s presence fades. Breha can’t imagine the strain of such an endeavor, weakened as she must be after surviving the blast on Raddus’ bridge. Worry taints the euphoria of being accepted and her unseeing eyes are still glued to the viewport. Therefore it comes as a surprise, when a blade pierces through her, although it shouldn’t; of course Hux would seize the first drop of her guard to stab her in the back. She is used to the pain, yet this one strikes her differently, perhaps because it was delivered amidst a taste of happiness or because as she senses, it’s the last one she’ll feel.

She crumbles on the floor. Hux pushes with his boot until she’s rolled on her bleeding back, facing him as he delivers a speech. She can’t be bothered to listen; she feels a spike of panic that isn’t hers, because everything is already dimming. In the corner of her drooping eye, Rey appears. Her tired heart kicks wildly in her chest as the girl blasts Hux across the room, radiant in her fury. Rey’s lovely face is above her, but Breha wants to understand nothing of its expression. She only wants to drink her in, perhaps have her deliver the final blow, have the arms she loves hold her as she finds peace, if she would be so kind.

The press of Rey’s hand above her heart is startling enough for her eyes to flutter open. The almost-Jedi’s face is scrunched in concentration. She would marvel at how adorable she is, if it weren’t for the Force rapidly flowing in her. Rey directs her energy to the wound on her back, and the miracle happens.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i could probably spend the rest of my days editing this chapter and still be unsatisfied. therefore, here are the words i scrapped together.

Rey has not enjoyed a full night’s rest ever since… Ahch-To? Jakku? From the stubborn droid to Kylo Ren’s kneeling, silently pleading form, her journey swirls worse than a sandstorm in her mind. Her slumber is more fragile than the flowers she’d try to nourish a lifetime ago; she starts up at the slightest murmur of her well-meaning Resistance bunkmates. Years and years of yearning for a family to surround her, for people to fill her loneliness, have culminated in a distaste for the slightest snore and it’s almost a betrayal, how much she craves solitude.

Chewie lets her stay in the _Falcon_ without question. She prefers spending her time in the old freighter despite its myriad malfunctions; repairing them keeps her from reliving her foolish antics, how she shipped herself into the enemy’s lair, armed only with hope and the now-useless lightsaber. Porg families are nestled in its every nook; she protects them from half-chewed circuits threatening to bake them and they offer their unobtrusive company in return. Technicians bring old weapons and vehicles for her to fix; she does what she’s good at and no one finds any fault in the young, helpful Jedi. If she’s a little distant, well, that’s expected of legends.

Finn stops by often, always bringing Rose or Poe with him. There’s such a pure joy in his eyes when all the people he cares for gather around him that Rey doesn’t have the heart to dampen it. He glows when recounting the battle of Crait, basks in Rose’s gentle teasing and Poe’s mischievous praise, and when he questions her about the time they were apart, she paints the picture he would like to see and quickly points the conversation towards the others again.

Both Poe and Rose listen to her tale with suspicion, though they all silently agree to cherish Finn’s innocence. Commander Dameron soon gets a formal briefing of what transpired in the _Supremacy_ and is too busy to ask for details; Rose on the other hand approaches her effortlessly, chatting idly about their field of expertise. She is content to talk about her sister, her dreams, even Finn, persisting until Rey almost cracks. Rose Tico is someone she could trust, were she given enough time to; unfortunately, she’s also the fire of the Resistance, its fiercest believer, and each of her waking moments is devoted to the cause.

All in all, Rey remains somewhat detached from her surroundings, navigating through any interaction with the ease of a well-oiled machine and hiding behind the old Jedi texts. However, the loot from the uneti tree offers no significant help; every book disappoints her with its hymns or indecipherable script. The only understandable parts marvel at how rare and precious a Force Bond is, how it connects two souls and makes unthinkable feats such as astral projection, teleportation and “exchanges of life-force”— whatever this means— possible. Rey’s indignation at reading such nonsense is amplified by her most recent encounter with Breha, _no_ , Kylo Ren; she would like nothing more than to set the sacred texts on fire, but the scavenger in her protests at the thought of destroying something reusable, so she only flings them across her cabin.

A pair of dark eyes haunts her as she tosses in her bunk. Kylo Ren has no right to mop and prey on her pity, not when she holds the galaxy in her gloved palm. She is no woman; she is the commander of the most powerful war machine anyone has ever seen. Rey fights to believe this, and to believe she rejected the budding Supreme Leader’s proposal, not her understanding, hurt Breha’s plea. She couldn’t have taken her hand, not with the Resistance transports getting blasted into oblivion.

But what if Holdo had struck the _Supremacy_ just a moment earlier? What if the ship had been torn in half before Breha stretched out her hand? They could have steadied each other, just as they did in battle, and Rey would have a chance to… ask Breha to join _her_? It’s such an odd, borderline traitorous notion, yet Rey can’t stop clinging on it, not after the image of Breha prostate on her knees, begging to die by her hand, is etched into the back of her eyelids. She’d already had the option to kill the last Sith. Except that she is no Sith and Rey had decided Kylo’s life belonged to the Force, not her. Could it be that she, a nobody with the briefest training, has been chosen as the vessel to end it all? Could the will of the Force be so cruel?

The last thoughts glue her eyes open until the chrono by her bed announces the beginning of another day. Rey quickly dons on some trousers and a tunic that will soon darken with grease, hopping on one foot to fasten her boots and tell Chewie she’ll be back soon. She snakes her arms into the white coat Leia has given her and heads off to the General’s headquarters. With Luke gone, she is the only one who shares her understanding of the Force, how unsettling it is to be used as its instrument.

Once she reaches the threshold, she stills. Leia’s Force signature is brighter than an exploding star across her and its echo is reflected on the other side of the Bond. The General is reaching out to the Supreme Leader? No, the mother holds the daughter tight. Rey’s spike of jealousy is drowned in their light suffusing her; the warmth overpowers her awareness of self and she catches her eyes getting wet. Yet like a cup of clear water or a shady reprieve, it doesn’t last. Leia’s presence reverts back to the familiar glow that anchors Rey when reaching out with her feelings.

Rey steps into the General’s room and locks eyes with the older woman for the briefest of moments before a flash of pain makes her double her over. Someone stabbed her, but how could that be? She’s not stranded on Jakku anymore, the people of the Resistance have no reason to hurt her. She drags her fingers across her back, where the phantom of pain lurks, but they come up clear. Despair spills through the cracks of her walls; she finds an ocean of it churning in the Bond’s other side. Breha is hurting. Rey runs.

In a blink, her feet step from the frost-lined corridors to sleek black tiles. She recognizes the pasty ginger standing across her as the General from Rose’s stories, Hux the vermin. He has less than a moment to eye her with disgust while she harnesses the Force to slam him against the wall. The thud of his head satisfies her just as his slumping body does. She raises a hand the way Kylo did in the memories she stole, to choke the cur as she would, but it falls when she hears a faint grunt behind her.

She kneels immediately, wrapping one arm around Breha’s shoulders. The beautiful eyes she could never escape from are almost shut and the color is draining from her full lips. Breha doesn’t move when Rey calls out her name; through the Bond, she projects the same defeated longing as the previous night, when she lowered herself at her feet and begged to be killed. _Quitting doesn’t suit you, Breha._ Rey presses her hand above the lying woman’s heart, ignoring the way she looks up at her in awe, and lets the Force flow between them the way the texts instructed for the “exchange of life-force”.

It’s easy as breathing, how her energy stitches the wound closed and grows the flesh anew until strength is flooding the other side of the Bond. Her own body weakens, but it’s merely an afterthought; she’s too busy basking in Breha’s gaze of adoration, watching as her cheeks color, restoring her glow in the Force. The room spins, but she still notices a uniform slithering on the floor, rising on his knees; she wastes her last vestiges of strength to pin him down his own dagger, her eyes never straying from the woman in her arms.

Breha sits up just as she slumps on her lap; she bears the weathered body with clumsy arms, searches for pulse with trembling palms. She wants to run a calming hand through her dark curls, banish the fear choking her, but she has to admit her worry soothes a selfish, arid part of her; someone wants her enough to worry. There’s nothing to do, anyway, except lie there, eyes closed, as all consciousness slips through her grasp, until it narrows down to the feedback of emotions cycling through the Bond.

It’s the oddest of sensations, tracing the cold of her skin through Breha’s fingers and feeling her weight carried by someone else. She’s held the way she’d been on Takodana ─when did the memory lose its taste of terror? Only her feet sway a bit; the rest of her is tucked against Breha’s warm chest. Her erratic heartbeat reaches out through the black garb and mingles with the sound of stormtrooper’s footsteps, of curious mumbles and the buzz of TIE’s ─and just like that, Rey is lulled to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> raise your hand if you, too, want to forget everything about tros except for how hot redeemed Ben Solo was (and even that, i recall very hesitantly). on a happier note, the first phrase of this chapter is taken from the last jedi novelisation, just like the quote in the fic's summary.

In her more than a millennium of life, Maz Kanata has witnessed such impressive oddities that when a TIE crashes right next to her castle, she barely bats an eye; no lone pilot is a threat for her, not even the First Order’s. What piques her interest, though, is the Supreme Leader rising from the cockpit, with the girl who ran off after touching Skywalker’s lightsaber in her arms. From the high shelf Maz is perched on, the black-haired woman bears a striking similarity to Han Solo as she swaggers into the cantina. Only a pilot’s jacket is missing to make her old man truly proud ─if he could look past her atrocious landing.

The old yet nimble woman is not eager to see the castle she poured heaps of credits on rebuilding get demolished by one of Kylo Ren’s infamous tantrums; the few patrons of her still-not-quite-repaired cantina eye the newcomer with hostility, the clouds of a storm are gathering. She jumps down and rushes up to her, dragging her by the sleeve of her sweatshirt into a secluded room. Before she can question her though, Kylo collapses on the floor, Rey carefully cradled against her torso. She’s unconscious and the Supreme Leader is clinging to her still, possibly about to lose her senses as well.

Maz has led them to her makeshift infirmary, where she used to nurse customers that insisted on working out their differences through aggressive negotiations, but also welcome weathered people with Resistance insignia sewn on their inside pockets or carved on hidden pendants. This humble space had once offered a moment of reprieve even to the legendary Jedi Master, Luke Skywalker himself, who entrusted his father’s lightsaber in her wrinkled, careful hands and sent a med-droid to thank her, one that could tend to the maladies plaguing Force users alone.

The droid tries to patch Rey up, examine her and come up with a solution, but the Supreme Leader ─ or rather, Breha Organa-Solo, her old name seems a better fit, just as the lighter, though still black, clothes do─ stubbornly holds on. It takes the droid and Maz’s joined efforts to extract the unconscious body from her arms; they hang limply afterwards, drained of their will. With Rey’s faint pulse beneath her fingers and the woman behind her still seated on the floor, Maz can’t help a small smile. _You walked ahead armed with your longing and through that bravery you found your belonging. You did wonderfully, dear child; rest as much as you need to, she will be there when you choose to wake up._

The droid, predictably, recognizes only fatigue as the cause of her indisposition and has no treatment to prescribe. Breha slumps again in the corner but Maz stops her before she can sink in despair; she demands explanations and she will extract them by force, if she must. There is, of course, something laughable about the galaxy’s strongest Force user currently not unconscious being threatened by an unarmed woman less than half her size. The authoritative tone alone makes Breha’s hand itch to grasp her lightsaber, hidden underneath her sweatshirt, but the impulse is fleeting. The whole story slips out of her lips, as unrestrained as water flowing to refill the banks of a dried river.

Maz peers at Breha’s alight face, at her dried tears and sweat gluing errand strands to her pale skin. Through her spectacles, it’s easy to pinpoint what she wouldn’t say if it wasn’t for the circumstance sweeping away her inhibitions. Little bits, like her fear of Snoke, the peace of connecting with Rey, how she misses her mother, color the bare facts and spark hope in the old listener. Breha stops and catches her breath for what appears to be the first time in years. Her panic spikes when Maz steps out of the room; one moment is enough for her to regret coming to Takodana, dismiss her notions as those of a romantic fool, fear for the uncertainty that lies ahead.

One moment later, Maz re-enters the room with a large, cushioned seat in her arms. Breha’s worry dissipates alarmingly fast, leaving her so disoriented that it doesn’t cross her mind to help the older woman carry the heavy piece of furniture. “Hux is either dead or injured, there will be internal conflict within the First Order to determine who will be the new ruler, you must tell─”

Maz pats her forearm, which has been trembling unbeknownst to its owner. “I will speak to Leia.” Maz’s assurance loosens her up enough to be guided into the chair. “She will come to you.” That stiffens her once more and her head snaps to the old woman approaching the exit. Her eyes are glassy and it’s a struggle to let her voice out.

“She won’t.”

Maz raises an eyebrow at her response ─at least, that’s what her expression reminds Breha of, since her species don’t have brows. “You underestimate Leia and her love for you. A mother’s love─”

“You know nothing about her love,” Breha spat out. “She wouldn’t have sent me away, if she…”

“She wouldn’t have reached out to you if she didn’t.” Breha sags back into the chair and turns her gaze to Rey’s oddly peaceful face. “I’m going to call her. You stay here and protect this girl as she did for you. There are no backstabbing generals here, but you started off the wrong foot with my patrons and they will not be as welcoming as I am.” Maz addresses her last words to her profile and barely catches the sigh of her response.

“I’d never leave her side if she let me,” Breha whispers to the hair nestled at her nape, to her half-open palm, to the door closing behind her. She has every intention of staying guard, sure that her years of insomnia will keep her alert, but Rey’s features are so serene, the snores spilling from her parted lips so soft, that Breha is soon lost to the embrace of sleep, her hand laying a breath away from Rey’s.

Outside, Maz runs down the corridor and picks up the comm she keeps in a secluded nook of her cantina. A signal with Leia Organa’s personal code has been received since the last time she checked, sent right in the middle of the dreadful union dispute that kept her from aiding Dameron and his co-conspirators. Could it be that he’s bitter about it, hence he’s not answering her transmission? Maz waits long enough to recall every piece of news she’s scraped together about the battle of Crait before someone appears ─ but not the one she was expecting.

Rose looks just as tough as she did when Maz first saw her; even more so, with her shoulders pulled back in some heavy winter coat. It helps that she’s no longer screaming her loss out in the Force, keeping it close to her heart instead, fuel to her determination. Maz is thankful for that opportunity to study her better, to find the subtle changes in her stance and in her tart, authoritative tone. Sadly, there are more pressing matters at hand.

“I need to talk to Leia, and I have important information for the Resistance.” She presses her face closer to the blue figure of her transmission field, knowing that her magnified eyes can be disconcerting to humans, especially up close.

“The General will not be disturbed for matters less urgent than, say, the entire First Order fleet emerging above us. Which is not happening, so anything else you have to say, you can say it to me.” Apparently Rose has acquired a position of power and is thriving in it. The future of the Resistance doesn’t seem so bleak after all.

“This is urgent and _personal_. Call her, and in the meantime I’ll tell you what will be very beneficial for you, a leader, to know.” Rose falters for a few moments, but in the end nods to someone off the range of her transmission field and turns immediately back to her. Maz leans back and adjusts her spectacles.

“Kylo Ren has deserted the First Order and last I know, General Hux is injured if not dead.” A gasp echoes in the background of the transmission, contrasting with Rose determined expression.

“Definitely not dead. There’s no way someone like him would die from a wound.” Though the words could be perceived as praise, the disgust she coats them with spin them into insults. There’s a story there, sparking that animosity, and in a quieter life, Maz would love to find it.

The woman in front of her composes herself quickly and stares firmly at her magnified eyes. “You did not lie about the codebreaker. I assume the information comes from someone you trust?”

Maz sighs. “I know it is true. As for how, the General will give you all the answers you need.” Leia enters the room then, leaning on a cane with a handful of worried faces trailing behind her.

“Maz, give me some good news. I’m in dire need of them.” Maz gives her a real smile, one that stretches across her face and reveals all the little wrinkles life has rewarded her with.

“Your daughter is here, come and take her home.”


End file.
